<chapter id="help-system-user-manual">
<chapterinfo><date>2002-02-03</date> <releaseinfo>0.08.00</releaseinfo> </chapterinfo>
<title>&kde; Help System User Manual</title>
<anchor id="help"/>

<sect1 id="help-introduction">
<title>&kde; Help System</title>
	
<para>The &kde; help system is designed to make accessing the common &UNIX; help systems (<application>man</application> and <application>info</application>) simple, as well as the native &kde; documentation (&XML;). </para>
	
<para>All base &kde; applications come fully documented, thanks to the efforts of the Documentation team. If you would like to help, please write to the Documentation coordinator, Lauri Watts, at <email>lauri@kde.org</email> for information. No experience is required, just enthusiasm and patience. </para>

<para>If you would like to help translating &kde; documentation to your native language, the Translation coordinator is Thomas Diehl, <email>thd@kde.org</email>, and he would also welcome the help. More information, including the coordinators for each language team, can be found on the <ulink url="http://i18n.kde.org">Internationalisation web site</ulink>, and in the <link linkend="contact">Contact</link> section of this document. </para>

<sect2 id="installation">
<title>Installation</title>

<para>&khelpcenter; is an integral part of the &kde; Base installation, and is installed with every copy of &kde;. It can be found in the tdebase package, and is available from the &kde-ftp;, or will be found in your operating system tdebase package. </para>

</sect2>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="invoking-help">
<title>Invoking Help</title>

<para>&khelpcenter; can be called in several ways: </para>

<variablelist> 
<varlistentry> 
<term>From the <guimenu>Help</guimenu> menu</term> 
<listitem>
<para>The most common will probably be from within an application. Choose <menuchoice><guimenu>Help</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Contents</guimenuitem></menuchoice> to open that application's help file, at the contents page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>From the <guimenu>K</guimenu> menu</term>
<listitem>
<para>Choose the big <guiicon>K</guiicon> in your panel, and select <guimenuitem>Help</guimenuitem> to open &khelpcenter;, starting at the default welcome page. </para>
</listitem> 
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>From the panel</term>
<listitem>
<para>By default, the &kicker; panel contains an icon to call &khelpcenter;. Again, the default welcome page is displayed. </para>
</listitem> 
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>From the command line</term>
<listitem>
<para>&khelpcenter; may be started using a &URL; to display a file. &URL;s have been added for <command>info</command> and <command>man</command> pages also. You can use them as follows: </para> 

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>An application help file</term>
<listitem>
<para><command>khelpcenter</command> <option>help:/<replaceable>kedit</replaceable></option> </para>
<para>Opens the &kedit; help file, at the contents page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>A local &URL;</term>
<listitem><para><command>khelpcenter</command> <option>file:/ <replaceable>usr/local/src/qt/html/index.html</replaceable></option> </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>A Man page</term>
<listitem>
<para><command>khelpcenter</command> <option>man:/<replaceable>strcpy</replaceable></option> </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>An Info page</term>
<listitem>
<para><command>khelpcenter</command> <option>info:/<replaceable>gcc</replaceable></option> </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>Invoking <command>khelpcenter</command> with no parameters opens the default welcome page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="interface-basics">
<title>The &khelpcenter; interface</title>

<para>The &khelpcenter; interface consists of two panes of information. </para>

<para>The toolbar and menus are explained further in <xref linkend="menu-and-toolbar-ref"/>. </para>

<para>Documents contain their own navigation tools, enabling you to move either sequentially through a document, using <guilabel>Next</guilabel>, <guilabel>Previous</guilabel>, and <guilabel>Home</guilabel> links, or to move around in a less structured manner, using hyperlinks. </para>

<para>Links can take you to other parts of the same document, or to a different document, and you can use the <guiicon>Back</guiicon> (Left pointing arrow) or <guiicon>Forward</guiicon> (Right pointing arrow) icons on the toolbar to move through the documents you have viewed in this session. </para> 

<para>The two panes display the contents of the help system, and the help files themselves, on the left and right respectively. </para>

<sect2 id="contents-pane">
<title>The <guilabel>Contents</guilabel> pane</title>

<para>The <guilabel>Contents</guilabel> pane in &khelpcenter; is displayed on the left hand side of the window. As you might expect, you can move the splitter bar, to make sure you can comfortably read the contents of either pane. </para> 

<para>The <guilabel>Contents</guilabel> pane is further divided into two tabs, one containing a <link linkend="contents-menu">menu</link> showing all the help information &khelpcenter; is aware of, and the other contains the &kde; <link linkend="kde-glossary">glossary</link> of terms. </para>

<sect3 id="contents-menu">
<title>The <guilabel>Contents</guilabel> Menu</title>

<para>The <guilabel>Contents</guilabel> contains the following default entries: </para> 

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Introduction</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Welcome to &kde; - an introduction to the K Desktop Environment.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Introduction to &kde;</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>The &kde; Quickstart guide. Contains a tour of the &kde; Interface and specific help and tips on how to work smarter with &kde;. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>&kde; User's manual</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>The &kde; User's manual is an in-depth exploration of &kde;, including installation, configuration and customisation, and use. </para>
</listitem> 
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Application manuals</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Native &kde; application documentation. All &kde; applications have documentation in &XML; format, which are converted to <acronym>HTML</acronym> when you view them. This section lists all the &kde; applications with a brief description and a link to the full application documentation. </para>
<para>The applications are displayed in a tree structure that echoes the default structure of the <guimenu>K</guimenu> menu, making it easy to find the application you are looking for. </para>
</listitem> 
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>&UNIX; manual pages</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>&UNIX; man pages are the traditional on-line documentation format for &UNIX; systems. Most programs on your system will have a man page. In addition, man pages exist for programming functions and file formats. </para>
</listitem> 
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Browse info pages</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>TeXinfo documentation is used by many &GNU; applications, including <command>gcc</command> (the C/C++ compiler), <command>emacs</command>, and many others. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Tutorials</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Short, task based or informational tutorials. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>The &kde; FAQ</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Frequently asked questions about &kde;, and their answers. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>&kde; on the web</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Links to &kde; on the web, both the official &kde; website, and other useful sites. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Contact Information</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>Information on how to contact &kde; developers, and how to join the &kde; mailing lists. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Supporting &kde;</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>How to help, and how to get involved. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect3>
<!-- 
<sect3 id="search">
<title>The <guilabel>Search</guilabel> tab</title>

<para>
Searching requires you have the <application>ht://Dig</application>
application installed.  Information on installing and configuring the
search index is available in the document.  Configuration of the search
index is performed in the &kcontrol;, by choosing
<menuchoice><guisubmenu>Help</guisubmenu><guimenuitem>Index</guimenuitem></menuchoice>,
and detailed help is available from this module.
</para>

<para>
For the purposes of this document, we'll assume you already have this set
up and configured.
</para>

<para>
Searching the help files is fairly intuitive, enter the word(s) you wish
to search for in the text box, choose your options (if any), and press
<guibutton>Search</guibutton>.  The results display in the viewer pane
to the right.
</para>

<para>The options available are:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Method</guilabel></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Choose how to search for multiple words.  If you choose
<guilabel>and</guilabel>, results are returned only if all your search
terms are included in the page. <guilabel>or</guilabel> returns results
if <emphasis>any</emphasis> of the search terms are found, and
<guilabel>boolean</guilabel> lets you search using a combination.
</para> 
<para>
Boolean syntax lets you use the operators <literal>AND</literal>,
<literal>OR</literal> and <literal>NOT</literal> to create complex
searches. Some examples:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>cat and dog</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Searches for pages which have both the words
<userinput>cat</userinput> and <userinput>dog</userinput> in them.  Pages with
only one or the other will not be returned.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>cat not dog</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Searches for pages with <userinput>cat</userinput> in them, but
only returns the ones that don't have the word <userinput>dog</userinput> in
them.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><userinput>cat or (dog not nose)</userinput></term>
<listitem><para>Searches for pages which contain <userinput>cat</userinput>, and
for pages which contain <userinput>dog</userinput> but don't contain
<userinput>nose</userinput>.  Pages which contain both
<userinput>cat</userinput> and <userinput>nose</userinput> would be returned,
pages containing all three words would not.</para></listitem> 
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>If your searches are not returning the results you expect, check
carefully you haven't excluded the wrong search term with an errand
<literal>NOT</literal> or a stray brace.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Max. results</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Determines the maximum number of results returned from your
search.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Format</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Decide if you want just a short link to the page
containing your search terms, or do you want a longer
summary.</para></listitem> 
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Sort</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Sort the results in order of <guilabel>Score</guilabel> (how
closely your search terms were matched,) alphabetically by
<guilabel>Title</guilabel> or by <guilabel>Date</guilabel>.  Selecting the
<guilabel>Reverse order</guilabel> check box, naturally enough, reverses the
sort order of the results.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><guilabel>Update index</guilabel></term>
<listitem><para>Update the search index, to incorporate new documents,
or if you think your database is incomplete or damaged.  This may take
some time.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
-->

</sect2>

<sect2 id="man-and-info">
<title>The <application>Man</application> and <application>Info</application> sections</title>

<para>Man pages are the standard &UNIX; manual pages, and have been in use for many years on many operating systems. They are extremely thorough, and are the very best place to get information about most &UNIX; commands and applications. When people say <quote>RTFM</quote>, the Manual they are referring to is very often the man page.</para>

<para>The man pages are not perfect. They tend to be in depth, but also extremely technical, often written by developers, and for developers. In some cases this makes them somewhat unfriendly, if not downright impossible for many users to understand. They are, however, the best source of solid information on most command line applications, and very often the only source.</para>

<para>If you've ever wondered what the number is when people write things like man(1) it means which section of the manual the item is in. You will see &khelpcenter; uses the numbers to divide the very many man pages into their own sections, making it easier for you to find the information you're looking for, if you're just browsing.</para>

<para>Also available are the Info pages, intended to be a replacement for the man pages. The maintainer of some applications no longer update the man pages, so if there is both a man page and an info page available, the info page is probably the most recent. Most applications have one or the other though. If the application you are looking for help on is a &GNU; utility, you will most likely find it has an info page, not a man page.</para>

<sect3 id="navigation">
<title>Navigating inside the <application>Info</application> pages</title>

<para>Info documents are arranged hierarchically with each page called a node. All info documents have a <guilabel>Top</guilabel> node, &ie; the opening page. You can return to the <guilabel>Top</guilabel> of an info document by pressing <guilabel>Top</guilabel>.</para>

<para><guibutton>Prev</guibutton> &amp; <guibutton>Next</guibutton> are used to move to the previous/next page at the current level of the hierarchy.</para>

<para>Clicking on a menu item within a document moves you to a lower level in the hierarchy. You may move up the hierarchy by pressing <guibutton>Up</guibutton>.</para>

<para>Man is treated similarly to info, with the section index being the Top node and each man page on the level below. Man entries are one page long.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="kde-glossary">
<title>The &kde; glossary</title>

<para>The glossary provides a quick reference point, where you can look up the definitions of words that may be unfamiliar to you. These range from &kde; specific applications and technologies, through to general &UNIX; computing terms. </para>

<para>In the left hand pane you will see a tree view, with two choices: <guilabel>Alphabetically</guilabel> or <guilabel>By topic</guilabel>. Both contain the same entries, sorted differently, to allow you to quickly find the item of interest. </para>

<para>Navigate down the tree views to the left, and items you select will be displayed on the right. </para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="menu-and-toolbar-ref">
<title>The menus and toolbar</title>

<para>&khelpcenter; has a very minimal interface, allowing you to concentrate on getting help rather than learning how to use the help browser. </para>

<para>The icons available to you in the toolbar are as follows: </para>

<variablelist>
<title>Toolbar Icons</title>

<varlistentry>

<term><guiicon>Back</guiicon></term>
<listitem>
<para>Go to the previous page you viewed.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guiicon>Forward</guiicon></term>
<listitem>
<para>Go forward one page. This icon is only active if you have already used the <guiicon>Back</guiicon> icon.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guiicon>Print</guiicon></term>
<listitem>
<para>Print the contents of the currently visible page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guiicon>Find</guiicon></term>
<listitem>
<para>Find a word or words within the currently visible page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guiicon>Increase Font</guiicon></term>
<listitem>
<para>Increase the size of the text in the viewer pane. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guiicon>Decrease Font</guiicon></term>
<listitem>
<para>Decrease the size of the text in the viewer pane. This icon is only enabled if you have previously enlarged the text. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

</variablelist>

<para>The menus contain the following entries: </para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guimenu>File</guimenu></term>
<listitem>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<menuchoice><guimenu>File</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Print...</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Print the contents of the currently visible page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term>
<menuchoice><shortcut> <keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>Q</keycap></keycombo> </shortcut> <guimenu>File</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Quit</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Close and exit &khelpcenter; </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guimenu>Edit</guimenu></term>
<listitem>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><shortcut> <keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>A</keycap></keycombo></shortcut> <guimenu>Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Select All</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Select all the text in the current page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><shortcut> <keycombo action="simul">&Ctrl;<keycap>F</keycap></keycombo></shortcut> <guimenu>Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Find...</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Find a word or words in the currently visible page. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guimenu>View</guimenu></term>
<listitem>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu> <guimenuitem>View Document Source</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>View the <acronym>HTML</acronym> source of the page you are currently viewing. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu> <guisubmenu>Set Encoding</guisubmenu> </menuchoice>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Change the encoding of the current page. Normally, the default setting of <guimenuitem>Auto</guimenuitem> should be sufficient, but if you are having problems viewing pages written in languages other than English, you may need to choose a specific encoding in this menu. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><guimenu>Go</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Back</guimenuitem></menuchoice></term>
<listitem>
<para>Go back to the previous page you were viewing.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><guimenu>Go</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Forward</guimenuitem> </menuchoice></term>
<listitem>
<para>If you have previously moved back with the back icon or menu entry, you can work your way forward again with this menu entry.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><menuchoice><guimenu>Go</guimenu> <guimenuitem>...</guimenuitem> </menuchoice></term>
<listitem>
<para>At the bottom of the <guimenu>Go</guimenu> menu, you will find a history list, of the last few pages you have looked at. Selecting one will take you directly back to that page.</para>
</listitem></varlistentry></variablelist>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="credits">
<title>Credits and Licences</title>

<para>&khelpcenter;</para>

<para>Originally developed by &Matthias.Elter; &Matthias.Elter.mail;</para>
<para>The current maintainer is &Cornelius.Schumacher; &Cornelius.Schumacher.mail;</para>
&underFDL; &underGPL; </sect1>
</chapter>

